A little of one, None of the other.

Even though I am wanting to do this in some kind of chronological order, as I have said, I am having a really hard time doing that. My brain just won't go in that direction much anymore. My brain is more what one would call "flighty" these days.

Today hasn't helped. I was going through some CD's that I have some family pictures on. (Thanks to my sister and her hard work in uploading them to me.) Those pics will be easy to transfer to this "project". I know I have pictures around here in the OLD form, actual PAPER pictures, but I have no scanner, so they do me no good right now. But what I did run across today, I thought should be added to this, because it is a very significant part of the entire family. I think herein lies the back bone of the entire family and how it was shaped the way it was, and why..... at least a big part of it.

The picture above is of my Grandpa Thomas. Orin L. ( "L" meaning nothing, from what my Grandma told me, back then middle names weren't that big of a deal or something, but at some point Grandpa was asked about a middle name and he just the letter L. Like I said, that is what Grandma told me.)

He was older than Grandma, (exact years, hell if I know). My Dad referred to him as "Pop". Many years later... not until I was in Jr. High, did I learn that the Grandpa that I had known wasn't my biological Grandpa. He wasn't my Dad's biological father. I was VERY shocked. And how I found out was quite by accident.

Grandma used to have this old box with a bunch of pictures in it. I used to love to go through that box as a kid. There were pictures of my Dad throughout his young life in there. Pictures of all my Grandma's sisters and brothers. (5 girls and 2 boys!) I used to call them my aunts and uncles because Dad was an only child. There were some pictures that were torn that would show just Grandma or just Dad and Grandma. When asked, Grandma just would say that it must've gotten torn over the years or something.

One day I was looking through the "picture box" again. Scrutinizing each and every photo. I ran across one that I didn't remember seeing before. I looked at it for quite some time, trying to figure out who this person was. I had no idea. Holding it in the air for Grandma to see.... I innocently asked..."Who is this? My Grandma, took a step closer to the kitchen table where I was sitting, then her face changed completely. She seemed to get a little nervous. "It kinda looks like Dad", I said.

Grandma took a few mintues and finally spoke. "I didn't realize that was in there. Uh, that is Bill Evans." I had no idea who this Bill Evans was, I had never heard the name before. She handed the picture back to me. I wish I could remember if her hands were shaking. I imagine that they probably were. I know mine would have been. I looked at her, puzzled, hoping that some memory would come to me so that I knew who this person was. Grandma didn't look so good. "He's your Dad's real Dad."

HUH??????? REAL Dad?? Then Grandma slowly sat down at the table. "The son-of-a-bitch left when your dad was real young. When he was around 5. Just up and left us. But your Grandpa Tom, he adopted your dad after we got married."

I remember just sitting there. My mind reeling with all kinds of questions. I had another Grandpa? I actually had 3 Grandpas??? "That is kinda neat", I thought. "Where is he? Does Dad see him? Why haven't I?" Grandma's face got real hard looking. Oops. I may've walked into dangerous territory here. I knew by this time there were just some things you didn't talk to Grandma about, or if she got that hard look on her face, you went some place you weren't supposed to.

" I don't know where he is and NO, your father hasn't seen him. The good for nothin'..." OK then, I guess that is the end of this conversation, I thought. Grandma started picking all the pictures up and placing them back in the box. "It's time for lunch", Was all she said.

Over the years.. little by little I came to learn a little more. Only just a little bit from Grandma, but it was my Mom that told me the most of it. She said that when Dad would drink, he would talk about his real Dad, but not mention him much at all any other time.

Just a couple of years ago I learned a lot more about my biological Grandpa, Bill Evans. It was through one of my Dad's cousins, Little Charlie. He was kind enough to call me, at my request, to fill in some of the blanks of that side of the family.

I learned that what I had thought all these years - my Grandma was madly in love with this man, Bill Evans. Apparently he was quite the charmer and Grandma fell for him, hook, line and sinker. Bill Evan's dad owned a grocery store up by Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane and Bill Evans used to work there sometimes. I guess his dad was a real SOB at times. At some point later, he went to work for Wonder Bread. There was a factory near downtown Spokane, near the YMCA. Later in life I wondered if he had still worked there when one of my elementary schools took a class trip there one time to see how Wonder Bread was made and how it made to the store shelves. At the end of the class tour we were supposed to get a mini loaf of fresh bread, but when we were all standing at this one window this guy was watching us and he came out to where we were and handed me a loaf of that bread and smiled at me. For the life of me, I can't remember what he looked like, or why he even did that. I thought it was strange and all the kids in the class got pissy because I already had my loaf of bread.

Bill Evans also had a passion for motorcycles, and the ladies. No one really knows what happened, but they do know that it had to do with another woman and my Grandma held that grudge,hurt and anger within her for the rest of her life. She was devasted when Bill Evans left.

No can seem to remember if Grandma and Bill E. married in Spokane, or if they married in Bellingham, or if Grandma took off for Bellingham after the divorce or what. None the less, that is where Dad and Grandma eventually ended up, and it was in Bellingham that Grandma met who I knew as my Grandpa... Orin.

From the time that Bill Evans left his family and my Grandma married Orin- over the years I had heard stories about the life my Dad had. Left to stay with his Aunt Gertrude for long periods of time, strange men around. Basically,it sounded like Dad was just shoved to the side while Grandma pursued another man. It sounds really shitty on the outside. But one really needs to look at the times. Women alone, raising a kid, well, that just wasn't good. It was practically a sin to do such a thing. You HAD to have a man, otherwise you were an outcast. I imagine that was a lot of pressure for my Grandma. But I don't discount the fact that she was probably "running angry" all that time too. That is how some people deal with the pain of being hurt by someone else. It undoubtedly was a combination of those two things.

Unfortunately my Dad suffered because of it. He was going through his own kind of pain with not having his Dad around anymore, now his Mom was always gone and he was shoved here and there. No doubt he felt like his Mom was going to leave, and I guess you could say... in a sense, she did. She abandoned him emotionally. When he needed her the most. But she was dealing with her own hurt, she was trying to survive too. I understand that, I have gone through it myself.

Then as a "newly wed", Grandma spent a lot of her time with her new husband. Their place in Bellingham was small. Grandma and Orin lived in the main part of the "house" and Dad lived in some out- building with no electricity or running water. From old photos that I have seen of the area around this place , it looks like they lived out in the middle of nowhere. (I realize that wasn't too hard to do back in those days... to live in the middle of nowhere, but this looked like it was stuck out in the middle of the woods some place or something.)

Even today it breaks my heart to remember the stories of my Dad when he was a young boyIt lived deep inside of him, his whole life... that pain, that rejection and he grew up to be a very angry and "pissed off at the world" man. I don't know that he ever forgave his Mom for things that she did and chose in her life. I don't know that he ever came to realize that Grandma had her own pain, she was trying to survive too. I suppose it wouldn't have mattered to him, anyway. He just didn't understand that we all do only what we know. And the ironic thing of it all is that I ended up having to be in the same place as my Dad. Not because he abandoned his family. At least not physically. But emotionally, yes. Over the years, I had to work HARD at forgiveness for my Dad. I have had to understand in my mind and in my heart that my Dad was just doing only what he knew. And only acting on the choices that he made on a day to day basis.

For much of my adult life, my heart has hurt deeply for my Dad. The pain he must've felt, for so long. The bible talks about the sins of the father. That the generations will pay for the sins of the father. Well, I can attest to that. My Dad paid for it, and I, as well as the rest of the family, have been paying for his. But I made a vow to myself A LONG time ago, it would stop with me. I have strived all my life to try not to make the same choices, to try to fight against what history had been. Sometimes I have been successful, sometimes... not so much.

Even though there was bitterness, anger, pain, confusion, and a host of other things within both my Grandma and my Dad. I had a love/hate relationship with the both of them. They both taught me a lot of things, things that have shaped me. Uh, yeah, good and bad.

I wish I could have met my biological Grandpa. I guess no one ever thought that, though my hole isn't as big, I would have one too, just like Dad. A part of myself that I never came to know. It's kinda sad, really. There was even a time in my life when I wanted to change my last name to Evans. As far as I was concerned that was my real name. That was my blood name.

But the Grandpa that I did know, the guy who watched out for my Dad. The guy who my Dad called "Pop". The guy who loved my Grandma to pieces. (You could see it in the way he looked at her, and sometimes in the way he talked about her).... that guy was a character in his own right. And I do believe that is who I will write a little about the next time.

But for now, as I look at these pictures, I see a bit of myself in them. People who have seen the picture of Bill Evans, think I look more like him than I do my Dad. Hell if I know. I think I look like a meld of both Mom and Dad. My sister on the other hand looks more like Dad. She even got his beauty mark just above her brow. It is on the opposite side, I think, but she got it. And I got something that Dad always wanted and would even shove pencils in his cheeks to get... dimples. I suppose another cruel joke the world played on him, I don't know. I say..... "typical." That is just how it all works sometimes.